Top football clubs are "different to other businesses," according to David Owen of INSIDE WORLD FOOTBALL. Whereas most companies "exist to generate wealth for their shareholders, football clubs must balance this against the pursuit of trophies." Of course, the two aims "are linked, or can be: mountains of silverware will increase a club's popularity, tending to make it more valuable and, hence, to enable its owners, should they so choose, to sell it at a profit." In this context, and with the "new European season fast approaching, the table below" ranking the 20 '14-15 English Premier League clubs by their "profits performance over a number of seasons makes fascinating reading." Using data compiled and published by Deloitte in "successive annual reviews of football finance," each club's pre-tax profit (or loss) over the seven seasons to '12-13 is listed.
EPL Team-By-Team Pre-Tax Profit From '05-'12
|
| RANK |
CLUB |
PRE-TAX PROFIT (£) |
1
|
Arsenal |
201.74M |
| 2 |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
54.38M |
| 3 |
West Bromwich Albion |
30.86M |
| 4 |
Swansea City
|
27.85M* |
| 5 |
Burnley |
-11.87M |
| 6 |
Crystal Palace
|
20.71M* |
| 7 |
Everton |
-32.33M |
| 8 |
Southampton |
45.67M* |
| 9 |
Stoke City |
-57.64M |
| 10 |
Newcastle United |
-64.33M |
| 11 |
Hull City
|
-75.72M |
| 12 |
Leicester City
|
-112.24M |
| 13 |
Sunderland
|
-127.87M |
| 14 |
ManU
|
-131.51M |
| 15 |
Queens Park Rangers
|
-156.6M |
| 16 |
West Ham
|
-177.01M |
| 17 |
Aston Villa
|
-217.54M |
| 18 |
Liverpool
|
-310.93M |
| 19 |
Chelsea
|
-424.73M |
| 20 |
Man City
|
-605.37M |
*Swansea and Southampton figures based on six seasons' data and Crystal Palace on five.
Only four clubs managed a profit. The 20 clubs posted combined aggregate losses of more than £2.25B. Indeed, "to some extent you could argue that there is an inverse relationship between the glory game and the profits game, given that the bottom three clubs in this table were the top three in last season's Premier League title race" (INSIDE WORLD FOOTBALL, 8/5).
